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Feminism: chat

Feminism: sex and gender

Original poster

Has The Pill lead to our current amoral, porn-heavy society?

64 replies

ViceLikeBlip · 08/12/2021 08:13

It's probably poor form to slate a programme before uts even been aired, but I just heard a trail in R4 this morning for The Moral Maze (8pm tonight). Michael Beurk talking about the sexual revolution started by the invention of the contraceptive pill, saying it allowed women to choose whether sex was for recreation or reproduction, then talking about our current society - breakdown of marriages, increasingly "sexualised" society, prevalence of porn - and asking "is this really where we wanted to be?"

WTAF??!!! Surely the question should be "60 years on and people (men) are still blaming women for men's actions - is this really where we wanted to be?"

I guess there's a chance that this was a very "clickbaity" trail, and maybe the programme itself will blow all that bullshit out the water? Here's hoping.....

OP posts:
IncompleteSenten · 08/12/2021 17:55

The internet?
So they'll claim it's Hedy Lamarr's fault then.

megletthesecond · 08/12/2021 17:56

I was pissed off when I heard the trailer just now.
Was going to email a fierce complaint to the BBC about it.

DaisyNGO · 08/12/2021 18:00

@IncompleteSenten

The internet? So they'll claim it's Hedy Lamarr's fault then.
No, they'll just be stunned when they find out she had any connection.

Be interested to hear from you all how this turns out. Even if it turns out to be a clickbait headline, it is still awful. Sounds like a discussion from decades ago.

CaMePlaitPas · 08/12/2021 18:06

Yes, society's moral decline is down to women. Nothing to do with patriarchy and misogyny, nuh uh.

Thegreencup · 08/12/2021 18:11

Porn has been around for a long, long time.

With every technology advancement we have made, it has advanced porn. Books/Art porn pictures, Camera, porn photos. Cinema, porn films. Videos, more porn films. Internet PORN FOR ALL.

Abitofalark · 08/12/2021 18:12

Has everyone forgotten Playboy and the associated porn culture and the lads' mags, the films and the clubs which were everywhere well before everyone got the internet? You couldn't meet a man who didn't subscribe to those things and didn't have a stash of pornographic magazines even in the 70s and 80s.

Thegreencup · 08/12/2021 18:12

Oh don't forget the phone and sex lines. Hmm

2bazookas · 08/12/2021 18:31

@MarshmallowSwede

Meant to add * in the early days of the pill, only married women were able to get it from doctors. .. so it wasn’t single women out humping all these men, because many single unmarried women were not even able to get the pill in the first place.
Not quite.

Single women (me, 1965) could not be prescribed The Pill on the NHS.

The Family Planning Clinic refused me because they only dealt with married women or soon to be married women.
Instead, it was pretty easy to pay for a private prescription from my NHS GP, and that's what I and many single friends did. ISTR mine cost about six shillings a month, perfectly affordable.

MakingTheBestOfIt · 08/12/2021 18:50

This is so depressing. I agree with the earlier poster who said it’s Adam and Eve all over again and the poster who commented “all the pill has really done is allow men to orgasm without consequence”

It is/was a good thing for many women, but so many of the ‘advantages’ are simply a way to minimise the disadvantage many women are at. For example, my Catholic grandmother told me that she took the pill secretly for years after her 5th pregnancy, as did many of her friends. It wasn’t an advantage so much as the negation of a risk she was expected, as a woman, to bear.

2bazookas · 08/12/2021 19:14

So all the pill has really done is allow men to orgasm without consequence

Back in the  1960's,   when we first had access to the pill,  the female orgasm was a huge surprise to many women.  Lots of our mothers had probably never had one.
DaisyNGO · 08/12/2021 20:32

Women can also orgasm without consequence? Seems a very odd way to describe the pill, it's wonderful IMHO.

ScreamingMeMe · 08/12/2021 21:07

@RepentBirthingPersonFucker

Ash Sakar will be the woman on the moral maze and she is no friend to women
Meh she has actually said some things that were pretty feminist and that I agreed with. She's just inconsistent because she believes in gender woo.
ScreamingMeMe · 08/12/2021 21:12

Great post FuckeryOmbudsman And you are well-named.

AdaFuckingShelby · 08/12/2021 21:12

It's the women's fault. Nothing to do with men failing to manage their sexual urges with the aim of creating a society safe for children and women. It's the women's fault. They make men do it. When will they learn?

EightWheelGirl · 08/12/2021 21:31

@Worldgonecrazy

I was thinking about this a few weeks ago. I used to believe that the pill was a great feminist invention, allowing women to have sex for fun.

But for most women, even today, sex may be fun for a handful. For most it is not fully consensual, even in the West. Everything from societal and/or cultural pressures, sulky husbands, or the emotional labour of sexual expectation mean many women are having sex because not having sex would be too dangerous or too much hassle. The relationship board on mumsnet is testament to this. Historically men have always been able to have sex when they want, either through rape or coercion, or within marriage.

So all the pill has really done is allow men to orgasm without consequence, not that they ever had to live with the consequences anyway. And promoted the social norm of sex-positive women, which encourages sex without intimacy or love. As an ex polyamorist I look at my past with jaded eyes.

The older I get the more cynical I have become!

No offence but I think all those years as a swinger have possibly given you a jaded view. I’d imagine a lot of the circles you revolved I’m where quite far removed from average couples.

I’d say the vast majority of sex is consensual.

EightWheelGirl · 08/12/2021 21:35

To be fair, anal sex was around in the time of the Romans. And the Kama Sutra was rather porny.

Yeswhatno · 08/12/2021 21:38

@Worldgonecrazy
But for most women, even today, sex may be fun for a handful. For most it is not fully consensual, even in the West. Everything from societal and/or cultural pressures, sulky husbands, or the emotional labour of sexual expectation mean many women are having sex because not having sex would be too dangerous or too much hassle. The relationship board on mumsnet is testament to this. Historically men have always been able to have sex when they want, either through rape or coercion, or within marriage.

There’s a lot of truth to this.
Women may have been called names if they had sex, but there is also huge pressure to have sex, particularly these days.
Prude, frigid, virgin, vanilla shaming is rife.
And rape in marriage was legal until the 90’s, many people still think sex is owed in a relationship.
A must have.
It’s not always safe to say no.
And these comes from both men and women.

KimikosNightmare · 08/12/2021 21:57

@RepentBirthingPersonFucker

Ash Sakar will be the woman on the moral maze and she is no friend to women
Have any of you actually listened to it?

Ash Sarkar wasn't on it. Even if she had been , I can't imagine for one minute that Sarkar would take the view that the pill was a bad thing and women are responsible for the moral decline of society.

The panel was Mathew Taylor, Mona Siddiqui, Tim Stanley and Anne McElvoy Mcelroy.

The witnesses were Dr Sarah Jarvis, (decided it was generally a good thing) Caroline Farrow- anti-pill and anti abortion who was trying to present her anti-pill and anti- contraceptive in general views as concern for women)

I don't know who else as got bored with it.

Cuck00soup · 08/12/2021 22:05

Well of course the pill is a problem. It allowed women to elect when they didn't want a pregnancy. Thus breaking the time and space continuum by saying no to the menz.

SenselessUbiquity · 08/12/2021 22:18

That's rubbish - porn is for wanking and wanking doesn't get you pregnant, with or without the pill.

MedusasBadHairDay · 08/12/2021 22:56

@Cuck00soup

Well of course the pill is a problem. It allowed women to elect when they didn't want a pregnancy. Thus breaking the time and space continuum by saying no to the menz.
That's it really isn't it? It was another way for women to say no to men. Can't have that.
LobsterNapkin · 09/12/2021 03:41

I don't see how you get from, the pill changed the culture around sex to the point where porn is now considered mainstream, And you could add that liberal progressive women tell us that sex work is work - to - that's saying porn is women's fault.

Do people really think it's some kind of unrelated chance that casual sex and so-called sex positivity, the idea that everyone needs sex, somehow came to the fore within a decade of the pill?

It's like people think it's a binary thing - if they admit any connection to outcomes that aren't positive, it means they also have to say there were no positive outcomes?

Clymene · 09/12/2021 04:43

@sauceyorange

Buerk by name.... Sorry couldn't resist. I like Michael buerk really
Why? He's a raging misogynist
CheeseMmmm · 09/12/2021 05:15

'Michael Beurk talking about the sexual revolution started by the invention of the contraceptive pill, saying it allowed women to choose whether sex was for recreation or reproduction, then talking about our current society - breakdown of marriages, increasingly "sexualised" society, prevalence of porn - and asking "is this really where we wanted to be?'

Lolol and for fucking fucks sake!

I mean Jesus.

Based on the OP. Is anything NOT women's fault?

Even when it's quite clearly NOT? It's MEN?

Bizarre. Sounds shit.

And also like something from decades ago. 70s/ 80s.

I can watch old episodes of bullseye on the telly. Over Xmas there's a new channel appeared which has lots of BENNY HILL!!!

I've noticed for a few years now. That lots of things are about that scream 'it's the 70s again!' at me.

The pill is responsible for internet porn? Give me a fucking break.

What is going on in our society it's all going very weird!

CheeseMmmm · 09/12/2021 05:31

I think a key question surely is.

How are things going in countries / large areas where women/ girls cannot access hormonal contraception?

Are things BETTER?

(For women and girls. Obvious no way. For men? Well would need a detailed look. But off the top of my head. Tends to correlate with societies where women/ girls are really having a pretty to very shit time.. At the hands of men, and society Inc police etc say well what's the problem?

Ubiquitous nasty porn on the net is because of women getting all hypersexual when got pill?

That's the question for a 'serious' TV prog?

Why not go back to basics.

Devil as snake said go on eve apple yum.
Eve said look Adam lovely apple have a snack!
Adam ate.

BOOM thrown out of paradise.

Whose fault?
Not the persuasive snake.
Not the man who munched away.

Nope. All her fault. Obviously. Must be punished. Here difficult , painful, risky childbirth!

Women eh. Root of all evil.